A developer is looking to add more affordable units to the Westchester neighborhood near Los Angeles International Airport.
Daniel Cowdrey filed plans with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning this week for a 33-unit apartment building at 8900 S. Ramsgate Ave. Twenty-seven of the units will be market-rate, and six will be designated as affordable housing for low-income tenants.
Cowdrey purchased the property in May 2016 for $620,000, according to documents filed with the city.
The developer will also seek a zoning change to increase the allowed height on the property. In order to promote affordable housing with access to mass transit, L.A. offers developers of residential projects access to a package of incentives. Those can be utilized if the developer sets aside a minimum of between 8 and 25 percent of the units as affordable and builds within a half-mile or less of a major transit stop.
Los Angeles has been pushing developers to add more market-rate and affordable units to cope with a severe homelessness and affordability crisis, which is being compounded by a lack of developable land. In July, a National Association of Realtors survey ranked L.A. as the least affordable place in the entire country. A typical household in L.A. can barely afford to buy four percent of the homes listed for sale, according to the study.